“Explain to me what I am seeing, please,” Karath asked, watching as the tide of riders collided, the ball somewhere under the churning hooves of the Companions. One half of the riders were wearing Bardic scarlet, the other, Healer Green—not because they actually were Bards and Healers, but because the two teams had been “sponsored” by the two other Collegia. It would, after all, have been impossible to tell which rider was on which team, otherwise.

“The players are all Heraldic Trainees, and they usually wear gray,” Selenay said, as there was a loud crack, and the ball suddenly seemed to fly out of the scrum on a pair of invisible wings. “This came out of a game the Trainees made up over the winter, called Hurlee—” She interrupted to cheer, as the Bardic goalkeeper made a last-minute save, her Companion rearing and pivoting on hind hooves, letting her catch the ball in her net. The goalkeepers had nets, rather than club-ended sticks.

“Anyway, we wouldn’t be able to tell the teams apart, so Bardic Collegium sponsored the team in red, and Healers the team in green.” She shouted again, as the Bardic goalkeeper threw the ball back into play, and one of her own people caught it while it was still in flight and sent it whizzing toward the Healer goal with a mighty blow of his stick. The whole field went charging after it.

“But how are the horses so well-trained?” Karath asked.

“They aren’t horses, they’re Companions,” she answered automatically. “Um—they’re—” She searched for a way to explain it to an outsider. “They have Mind-magic, and so do the Trainees, and it’s like having a partner. They can speak to one another.”

“Ah, magic,” Karath said wisely. “Of course. Like the Hawkbrother mages who control their birds in the strange places in the Pelagirs.”

Actually, it’s not like that at all, she thought, but that was probably as close as he was going to get until he’d been here a while, and saw for himself. Or until a Companion Chose him. “That’s close enough, I suppose,” she said instead, and turned her attention to the game.